Italy 1943-1948: From catastrophe to reconstruction

By Massimo L. Salvadori

"The topic of this second edition of the Gaetano Sal- vemini Colloquium is one of the most complex in Italian history. In just a few years, between July 1943 and April 1948, a rapid succession of events took place that are critical to understand the history of post-fascist Italy along with the political and institutional process that led to the approval of the Constitution and the birth of the Republic."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Viella Libreria Editrice
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9788867284276

Massimo L. Salvadori

Massimo L. Salvadori è professore emerito dell’Università di Torino. Tra le sue più recenti pubblicazioni: Italia divisa. La coscienza tormentata di una nazione (Roma 2007); Liberalismo italiano. I dilemmi della libertà (Roma 2011); L’Italia e i suoi tre stati. Il cammino di una nazione (Roma-Bari 2011).

Book preview

cover.jpg

GAETANO SALVEMINI COLLOQUIUM

HARVAD UNIVERSITY

edited by / a cura di

Renato Camurri e Charles Maier

2

Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University

The name of Gaetano Salvemini is intimately linked to Harvard. Salvemini first came to Cambridge in 1933 and taught here until 1948 thanks to a special fund made available by an American actress Ruth Draper, who was the partner of Lauro De Bosis – the young antifascist who died in 1931 as he was returning from a flight over the city of Rome where he had dropped antifascist leaflets – but thanks also to the direct influence of a number of people in and around Harvard, including the Supreme Court judge Felix Frankfurter, the historian Arthur Schelinger senior and the then President of Harvard, James Conant.

With the intent of commending and renewing the moral and intellectual legacy Salvemini left at Harvard, in 2012 the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and the Italian Consulate in Boston took the decision to inaugurate the Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture, an annual lecture to be delivered each October.

The main aim of the Colloquium is to offer a series of high level scholarly reflections on questions that have left a mark on Italian political, intellectual and cultural history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The central pillar of the Colloquium is an annual lecture delivered by a scholar of world renown followed by brief comments by some respondents.

Il nome di Gaetano Salvemini è intimamente legato a quello di Harvard. Lo storico italiano arrivò a Cambridge nel 1933 e vi insegnò fino al 1948 grazie ad uno speciale fondo messo a disposizione dall’attrice americana Ruth Draper, compagna di Lauro De Bosis – il giovane antifascista morto nel 1931 al ritorno da un volo aereo dimostrativo compiuto sopra Roma dove aveva lanciato dei manifesti contro il regime – e al diretto interessamento di alcune personalità dell’ambiente harvardiano tra cui il giudice della Corte Suprema Felix Frankfurter, lo storico Arthur Schelinger senior e l’allora presidente di Harvard James Conant.

Volendo valorizzare e rinnovare l’eredità morale e intellettuale lasciata dallo storico italiano ad Harvard, nel 2012 il Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies e il Consolato Italiano di Boston hanno deciso di dare vita al Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture che con cadenza annuale si terrà nel mese di ottobre.

L’obiettivo principale del Colloquium è quello di presentare una serie di riflessioni di alto valore scientifico attorno a questioni che hanno segnato la storia politica, intellettuale e culturale italiana tra otto e novecento. La struttura del Colloquium ruota attorno ad una Lecture affidata ad uno studioso di chiara fama e agli interventi di alcuni discussants.

Massimo L. Salvadori

ITALY 1943-1948:

FROM CATASTROPHE TO RECONSTRUCTION

ITALIA 1943-1948:

DALLA CATASTROFE ALLA RICOSTRUZIONE

viella

Copyright © 2014 – Viella s.r.l.

All rights reserved / Tutti i diritti riservati

Prima edizione: dicembre 2014

ISBN 978-88-6728-427-6 (epub)

logo.jpg

Questo volume è stato pubblicato con il contributo

delle Cantine Ferrari di Trento

logo_20ferrari.png

Elaine Papoulias

Executive director, Minda de Gunzburg Center

for European Studies at Harvard University

Giuseppe Pastorelli

Consul General of Italy in Boston

Foreword

On October 16, 2013 Harvard University’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies hosted the second annual Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture.
We are pleased to present the proceedings of the event, as it both disseminates the important ideas and reflections presented at Harvard to broader audiences as well as helps to keep the memory of Professor Gaetano Salvemini alive.

We are very grateful to Professor Renato Camurri for his introduction, Professor Massimo Salvadori for his keynote speech on one of the most complex and dramatic periods in 20th century Italian history, as well as Professor Charles Maier and Professor Silvana Patriarca for their comments which enriched the debate.

Many thanks to the Salvemini Colloquium Committee chairs Charles Maier, Daniel Ziblatt, Grzegorz Ekiert and Renato Camurri who conceptualized the academic framework for this event.

Finally, we also wish to thank Cantine Ferrari and its President, Mr. Matteo Lunelli, for supporting the publication of this second edition of the Colloquium proceedings.

Renato Camurri

Introduction.

A Conflict of Memories: Antifascism, Resistance,

and Civil War (1943-45)

1. An Inconvenient Legacy

The topic of this second edition of the Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium is one of the most complex in Italian history. In just a few years, between July 1943 and April 1948, a rapid succession of events took place that are critical to understand the history of post-fascist Italy along with the political and institutional process that led to the approval of the Constitution and the birth of the Republic.

The path between dictatorship and democracy is marked by a series of dates and events that are worth mentioning: July 25, 1943 (the fall of Mussolini), September 8, 1943 (the armistice, or rather the unconditional surrender to the Anglo-American forces and the birth of the Resistance), April 25, 1945 (the end of the war), June 2, 1946 (the Referendum to choose between the Monarchy and the Republic and the election of the Constitutional Convention), and the political elections, by universal suffrage, on April 18, 1948 which ended this process.

We focus our attention above all on the crisis of 1943-45 and offer observations that shed light on some problems of interpretation relating to the complex issues that appeared on the Italian scenario following the fall of Mussolini. Prof. Salvadori, will address these issues more extensively.

The dates mentioned above are key turning points in our recent history and to this day, are important civil holidays (April 25th and June 2nd). It was around these dates that the ruling class, during the first decades of the Republic, attempted to cement a sense of national community that had been shredded after twenty long months after Mussolini’s fall. This process was not unlike what took place in other European countries, according to Tony Judt’s observations.

These are some of the founding myths of the Republic that arose from the Resistance, to borrow a phrase that became part of the political parlance in the immediate post-war period.